Doublecross 3rd edition is the latest and greatest version of one of my favorite RPGs. The best way to describe it is as a very story-focused “Japanese X-Men”. I think it refers to itself as “Dark Conspiracy Action”, and it’s that in equal amounts: The conspiracy stuff is baked into the setting, and the action is baked into the rules: All the rules are pretty much geared towards the “Effects”, or character powers, which reside under “Syndromes”, or power sets. So my character might have the syndromes Salamander and Hanuman, which are the domains of Fire Control and Speed (respectively), and a number of Effects/powers under each.

It’s a d10 dice pool system with just a little bit of math involved in each roll (tallying the number totals on pools of dice), but it’s fast and solid. The power sets are evocative and awesome. The story-focused play keeps you tied socially to the other players, with the major NPCs in your life offering you strength so you don’t “turn to the dark side” (but as relationships, they can be burned to keep you alive, basically flipping from Lois Lane to Lex Luthor types in the process).

Also, KH Shu, the translator, basically didn’t just translate and sell one book in the series, he combined at least three Japanese releases (Rulebooks 1 and 2, and I believe another, likely the Advanced Rulebook) together into one massive English tome.

If you like X-Men style young supers, Exalted-like Charms (for combos, etc, but without Exalted’s “massive amounts of dice ultimately doing nothing” effect), and dark conspiracy/betrayal, this game is totally for you.